A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in the Northern Counties of England and in Scotland (Volume 2)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1838 Excerpt: ... cloth--the boast of the British Linen Company;--coffee, pellucid, hot, and strong; muffins, crisped and raised; together with the bubbling and loud-hissing urn, throwing its boiling cataract upon the fragrant leaves of hyson and souchong! These for the body's nourishment. For that of the mind, there were pictures and books. Mr. Napier has a few interesting portraits--chiefly of a family description. His name is illustrious in Scottish Science: for who has not heard of the Logarithms of Napier?f The portrait of this eminent man, which is over Mr. Napier's diningroom mantlepiece, is, if not the original, an ancient as well as excellent copy of what appears in the hall close to the University. The back part of the ruff and head are painted with great tenderness. Surely it must be an original portrait of Thomson which Mr. Napier possesses? And near it appears to be an original female portrait by Hogarth. It is, if I remember rightly, the great-grandfather of Mr. Napier--an admiral of the time of Sir George Rooke--who is hit off with such characteristic raciness. We now pay our homage to the Library--on the drawing-room floor. It constitutes the back drawing-room. I first darted upon what may be called the quarto edition of Mabillon de Re Diplomatica--or the Nouveau Traite de Diplomatique, in six volumes, with the plates forming a seventh. It was on large paper: and perhaps on the whole is the finest copy which I ever saw. It had not been a bloodless acquisition. And then the folio Cudworth--in the first, genuine morocco attire--from the Meerman Collection. What thumps had been sustained for the securing of such a prize! It is the facile princeps of all copies...yet seen by me. This definition is Talleyrand's. I A life of this distinguished man has recently...